


Roots

by sylvanWhispers



Category: South Park
Genre: Adoption, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Peruvian Craig Tucker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 12:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15315438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvanWhispers/pseuds/sylvanWhispers
Summary: Craig learns something that causes him to think deeply about where he's from, and where he's going.





	Roots

At first Craig hadn’t even noticed his parents freeze up, his father’s fork hovering over his plate and his mother faltering mid-reach for her glass. It’d been a pretty innocuous question, he’d thought.

“W-what was that, again dear?” Mrs. Tucker asked uneasily.

“My birth certificate,” Craig repeated as he cut into his steak. “I need it to get my driver’s license. Where is it?”

Blunt, to the point. He'd always considered it one of his virtues.

“Oh. Your license. Of course.” His parents exchanged wary glances. “I don’t know if we have - your passport will work just fine, won’t it dear?”

“How do I have a passport but not a birth certificate,” Craig asked flatly.

“Of course you have a birth certificate, son.” His father shifted uncomfortably.

“So what’s the problem?”

“There’s no problem. It’s just… we know where your passport is. Your birth certificate is, ah. In storage. Yes.” His mother cleared her throat. “We’re not quite sure where.”

“Isn’t that something we should find?” Craig’s eyes narrowed. “Seems pretty damn important.”

“Well,“

“And it’s pretty easy to get another one, right? Just call the hospital and pay ten bucks.”

“Um."

“Oh for god’s sake Laura.” His father rested his forehead in his hands. “We’ve got to talk about this sooner or later.”

“But Thomas -“

“Talk about what?” Craig looked between them. “What’s the big deal?”

There was silence across the table.

“Tricia, why don’t you finish dinner in your room,” Mrs. Tucker said, voice carefully level.

Craig's sister looked like she wanted to argue, but at the stern expressions of their parents wordlessly picked up her plate and utensils. They all waited for her footsteps to fade, followed by the sound of a shutting of a door.

Mr. Tucker sighed heavily before pushing up from the table. “I’ll get the file.” 

Then his parents were sitting down with him and letting his eyes scan over a slightly yellowed sheet of paper. There was his name and then his parents’ names listed in the proper places, and it had clearly been distributed by the state of Colorado. However _Certificate of Foreign Birth_ was emblazoned at the top. Near the bottom was the notation _this certificate is not evidence of U.S. citizenship_. 

“We have other things you can use,” his mother said soothingly. “There’s your C.O.C., your passport. Your baptismal record from after we brought you home.”

Brought him home. The typeface text that read “Country of Birth: Peru” was probably seared into his mind’s eye forever.

“So I was… born while you guys were on vacation or something?” Craig asked, desperately hopeful.

His father reached into the folder and pulled out another sheet of paper.

An adoption record.

“We were very thorough,” his mother was saying. “You’re an American citizen, Craig. There won’t be any problem getting your license.”

“What about my parents?” He felt the both of them cringe slightly.

“We’re your parents,” Mr. Tucker said firmly. 

“But _they’re_ not listed anywhere. Shouldn’t they be-?” Craig shuffled through the papers.

“All of those things get amended in the adoption process,” his mother explained. “And you were in the custody of the orphanage when we found you. The nuns said it wasn’t uncommon for younger girls to put up babies born outside of marriage. Anonymously.”

“So I’m a bastard too.”

“That’s not-“

“We know it’s a lot to take in,” his father said. “But we love you Craig. Nothing’s changed.”

It felt like everything had.

* * *

 

For a long time afterwards Craig lay on the floor of his room, staring vacantly at the ceiling. He listened to the murmuring of his parents down the hall, the running of water as his sister showered. He lay there until light no longer shined through the crack under his door and the sounds faded. 

He’d been sneaking out since he was eight and it had only gotten easier with acquired age and height. His boots sunk into the snow beneath his window as he carefully slid it shut behind him. He didn’t have a destination in mind; just the aching need to get out of the house. 

South Park at night was quiet, especially in the residential neighborhoods. Every now and then there would be some antics from the local kids - last week he’d spotted Tricia wearing her bathrobe in the park and declaring herself High Mage of the North while one of her friends threw a hockey stick like a spear at another kid’s head. He also gave it a week before some kind of undead uprising or monster attack struck the town.

There wasn’t much happening on this particular school night though, and Craig hoped the cold night air would help clear his thoughts.

Emotions had never been his strength. He frankly didn’t know what to do with them. The act of getting emotional itself seemed to require a lot of investment, and Craig had gone through life with ‘not enough fucks to give’ as the unofficial header to his personality. 

It’d always been there, only to be enforced by his friendship with Clyde because _somebody_ had to be the rational one. Then came Tweek, perpetually strung-out and anxious. Craig had never set out to be anyone’s shoulder to cry on our source of stability, but he was good at it. And he’d never been in the position of needing someone else to help him figure out his emotions.

Right now he could really benefit from someone telling him what he was feeling.

Craig found himself at the old playground, trudging through the snow to plant himself on one of the swings. They were too low for him to sit comfortably on anymore but he idly rocked in place anyway, the frozen chains screeching from the strain.

The knowledge that he was adopted sat in Craig’s chest like a stone weight and his stomach churned with something almost like shame. His parents had picked him up secondhand in a foreign country and never planned to tell him about it.

In hindsight it nearly felt obvious. He thought about Tricia, who had their mother’s features and their father’s skin and a strawberry blonde mix of both their parents’ hair colors. He remembered his mother being pregnant, remembered Tricia being brought home. She'd been born in the hospital a few miles east, not in a foreign country a whole world away.

Then there was Craig: black hair, blue eyes, olive skin. Completely different bone structure. He could distinctly recall decking Cartman for commenting that his mom must’ve cheated on his dad with “the help” to make it happen. Afterwards Craig had never thought about it again - genetics were unpredictable and Cartman was an idiot, the end.

God.

He sat there for what felt like hours but must’ve only been minutes, rocking himself in that shrill frozen swing. Everything had gone numb, leaving him feeling hollowed out and empty.

When he heard them he recognized Tweek’s footsteps without even having to look up. They were characteristic of him - careful and uneven, but confident. His boyfriend might have been anxious and paranoid but he wasn’t shy.

“Craig? What’s going on?” 

He shrugged. He knew that he redefined resting bitch face, his expression stony and unimpressed by default. Those closest to him knew how to interpret it however, and Tweek must’ve seen something in the blankness of his features before sliding into the swing beside Craig's. 

“It’s pretty fucking miserable out here.”

He half-heartedly scuffed his shoes against the ice and dirt in response.

Tweek gave him a troubled look before reaching over and prying Craig’s hand off the swing chain and clasping their palms together. For a few minutes they stayed like that, silent.

“I’m adopted.” No noticeable response. Craig wasn't sure if he'd wanted one. “Was it obvious?”

“No.”

“But you’re not surprised.”

Tweek shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Craig didn’t know how to answer that so he changed the subject. “I just wanted to get my license. Maybe find a used car for cheap. Dad said I’ll need one anyway for college.”

Tweek nodded and waited for him to continue.

“I know that the idea of driving makes you anxious, so I just thought I could, you know. Take you places.” Craig shrugged. “Help you learn to drive, maybe. So you’re not so nervous about the test when you do it.”

“That’s really sweet, Craig.”

He hadn’t done it to be sweet. It was what Craig wanted.

Lately he’d begun to think more and more about the future, that amorphous looming _thing_ that had begun to hang over everyone’s heads. They were at the start of junior year and the pressure to make plans was coming down on everybody. Token had started talking about law school and it was a given that Jimmy was going to have his pick of science scholarships. Clyde’s sheepish aspiration to be a pastry chef had given his football coach a mental breakdown, even though Craig had always known his friend to be too tenderhearted (read: a pussy) to really run with other jocks. 

So then there was Craig. His chosen field of astronomy wasn’t likely to make big returns. Tweek was the one inheriting a family business, the one who had been employed at his parents’ coffee shop for years with the bank account to show for it. Craig had been dealing with sugar daddy jokes for years and was long resigned to his boyfriend being the breadwinner. If Tweek was going to take care of them financially, the least Craig could do is take care of him in the way he knew how.

He just hadn’t expected it to all come to this.

“Hey,” Tweek gave him a nudge. “You can talk to me.”

Craig chewed on the inside of his lip. “I guess part of me wishes they’d fucking told me. And the other part wishes I’d never found out at all.”

“It is a lot to deal with... but is it really so bad?” Tweek asked, beginning to fidget. 

“Bad?” Craig repeated absently.

Tweek swallowed, hands wringing as his eyes darted to the ground. “I, I mean. If w-we ever want kids, ah, we’re going to have to adopt, right?” 

In an instant Craig’s body went from ice cold to overwhelmingly hot, blood rushing to his face so quickly it made his head spin.  He thought about the time Tweek had taken him by the hand and bought Stripe #4. They'd been children then, both high off this new shared responsibility between them. The idea of making a real family someday -

“Uh.”

“That’s! Not that it’s a thing I’m - because we’re only - oh geez -“ Tweek looked ready to pull his hair out so Craig grabbed his other hand on reflex. “Is that weird!? I don’t want to get weird - !”

“You’re not weird,” Craig said, squeezing Tweek’s hands and feeling the tremors ease somewhat.

“I just- I don’t know what you’re going through,” Tweek said, a shaky wobble to his voice. “But when - _if_ we… hng, do that…”

He gave a little shudder and Craig felt a complimentary shiver run up his own spine.

“I know I’d love our kid more than anything.” Tweek was squeezing Craig’s hands back now, knuckles going white with a vice-like grip. “Wouldn’t you?”

Craig cleared his throat, which had suddenly gone tight.

“Of course.”

* * *

 

They went back to Tweek’s house, warmth washing over them as they slipped into his room. They barely had to sneak; the Tweaks had made it abundantly clear that their son’s boyfriend was welcome anytime. They’d probably greet him at the breakfast table without question if he felt inclined to stay.

“Dad talks about it all the time,” Tweek had told him with beleaguered embarrassment. “Us. He thinks it’ll draw in young people and hipsters.”

“He might not be wrong.”

Craig didn’t really mind. He didn’t want his sexuality to be a big deal - because it wasn’t - but at the same time he was more than fine with advertising to the world that he was dating Tweek Tweak. 

He toed off his damp boots and felt the numbness fade from his hands as Tweek shrugged off his jacket.

“Set an early alarm?” Craig asked as he put his hat on the desk. “Don’t want my parents to freak out.”

There was a faint smile of approval as Tweek fiddled with his phone.

The bed wasn’t meant for two and had only gotten smaller as they grew over the years but they made it work. Awkwardly, with clumsy conversations about how _of course_ this wasn’t weird and dude, wearing jeans to sleep wasn’t reasonable. 

Craig felt the bed shift as Tweek sidled up beside him, taller but still the thinner and lighter of the two. They folded around one another easily, skin still chilled from being outside. For several long moments no one said anything. 

“I’ve thought about it too,” Craig murmured.

“Hm?”

“The future. We should come back, once we’re done with school,” Craig said, half-burying his face in a pillow that smelled like his boyfriend’s shampoo. “Everyone should.”

He had a feeling in his gut that it would be the case anyway. For all the many and varied plans people were making, Craig would be surprised if anybody left for good. 

“We’re only sixteen.” He could practically feel Tweek’s blush burning against the darkness of the room. “We don’t have to be thinking about any of that now.”

“I know. It could be decades from now. I’m just saying,” Craig said. “I want our family to be in South Park.”

The town was fucked up. Beyond fucked up. But it was theirs, and with Craig staring down the barrel of their futures he never felt more certain about it.

Tweek gave a shaky nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

* * *

 

The alarm went off a little after sunrise. Craig sleepily detangled himself from his boyfriend’s long limbs and fumbled through getting dressed.

“I’ll see you at school,” he said, adjusting his hat. 

“Are you feeling okay?” Tweek asked, inexplicably alert as usual and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Craig wordlessly bent down and pressed a kiss to Tweek’s mouth, drinking in the little “oh” of surprise.

“I’ll see you at school,” he repeated after pulling away.

Tweek nodded absently, vivid green eyes glazed over.

“Okay.”

He felt lighter on the walk home, the skies shifting from purple to blue overhead. Mixed with birdsong was the budding rumble of car engines; dogs barked and squirrels skittered over the snow and there was something deeply comfortable about it all.

By the time Craig was back in his room he could hear his parents moving about the house. He texted Tweek to tell him he’d gotten home safely before beginning the morning routine of showering and changing into new clothes for school. A morning like any other.

He silently sat down for breakfast, awkwardness palpable as his parents made half-hearted attempts at small talk. Tricia put a hand on his knee and did her best to drive the conversation, causing Craig to wonder if she’d overheard or if their parents had told her when he’d been in his room. 

When it was time for Craig to head for the bus stop he lingered in the entryway before wordlessly turning around, hugging both of his parents and heading straight back out the door. 

Emotions weren’t his strength, emotional displays even less so, but his relationship with Tweek had taught him how to make an effort. Among many other things.

He stood at the bus stop, hearing but not really acknowledging when Clyde drowsily tromped through the snow to queue up beside him. Token and Jimmy followed, the three of them engaging in idle conversation just as they had for as long as any of them could remember. 

"You okay Craig?" Clyde elbowed him. "You're out of it. Something happen?"

Craig watched as the oncoming bus turned the corner.

"No," he said finally. "Nothing's changed."

**Author's Note:**

> I hammered this out in a single morning, I know the prose is still rough. I'll probably smooth it out later.


End file.
